The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N

#403
Title: The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N
Author: Leonard Q. Ross (Leo Rosten)
Publisher: Harcort, Brace, & World
Year: 1937/1965
154 pages

I can't find a photo of my edition, but the publishing information above is correct. This is a re-read for me, but since I read it somewhere between 30-37 years ago it's more nostalgic than anything else. I have had H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N on my mind for several weeks as I read books that evoke him. Hyman, an immigrant, takes beginner's night English classes and speaks like your immigrant forebearers did if they were Ashkenazi Jews in New York or New Jersey before 1950. Hyman is an earnest yet immovable object. Reading this as a child, I saw him as the bane of his teacher's existence. Reading it now, having taught or worked in educational settings for most of the intervening years, I took in that Hyman's teacher, Mr. Parkhill, understands that Hyman is both a burden and a genius. This, I think, is something that differentiates this episodic comedy from others that rely exclusively on the trope of the dumb greenhorn's hilarious mispronunciation and mangled grammar. Hyman's misunderstandings provide a fresh vision of English, revealing hitherto unseen facets of the language and forging fresh connections. For me, the shining and ineffable utterance, the pinnacle of Jewish philosophy's efflorescence, is Hyman's assertion, "Mine oncle has a gless eye." You'll have to read the story to see why this simple (and untrue) statement is such a hilarious emblem of Talmudic reasoning paired with the Jewish stubbornness necessary to survive in world that seeks to quash the Jewish spirit.

I read The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N at my grandparents' house, at about the same time as I read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint and Idries Shah's Mulla Nasrudin tales. Leaving aside an early adolescent's profound embarrassment at having her mother ask, "Have you gotten to the liver yet?", this is a useful trio, of which Ross/Rosten is the fulcrum. Hyman brings Yiddishkeit to the New World, not just through his language, but in his attitude, world view, and exuberance. His is the optimism of the Jew in the promised land. While he bears the burdens of tsars and World War I, his is not the generation of Hitler's particular horrors. Portnoy holds the angst of post-Holocaust American Jewry that must wrestle with how much to accept and how much to reject the pessimism of such active anti-Semitism. Portnoy would find Kaplan naive, but see this as contemptible, whereas the Mullah Nasrudin might find him companionable, another blessed fool whose nonsense makes reasonable sense, if one is willing to really hear it.